I always knew that I wanted to be a mom.  More specifically, I always knew that I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.  Somehow over the course of my four years of teaching, I managed to scrape together enough money in my savings account to stay home for five years once my husband and I…

Last week we partied on Twitter with JCPenney and The Moms to kick off a month of free haircuts at JCPenney Salons.  Today is the day!  Take your kids into JCPenney Salon today for a free child’s haircut and JCPenney will donate $1 to the Boys and Girls Club as well as 4H.  What’s better…

A couple weeks ago my family and I had the honor of being included in an Adventures By Disney sample vacation along with other bloggers and members of the media.  I’ve been meaning to tell you about it ever since and have only been delayed by the fact that I have over 700 pictures to…

Hi, my name is Amy, and I have gained seven pounds in the last eight months. Last summer everyone followed along as I joined the Mamavation community and finally worked on changing my sedentary, unhealthy lifestyle.  My kids were both headed to elementary school, my work schedule was becoming a bit more focused, and I…

I am going to the Olympics. Yes, the ones in London that begin this week. I bought tickets to two events several months ago with the idea that if I couldn’t go, they’d be easy to unload.  Every now and then I put something related to the tickets out there on social media because I…

When most people think of Compassion International, they primarily associate the organization with the child sponsorship program.  However, Compassion works to provide relief from poverty in Jesus’ name around the world in a variety of ways.  One such program, the Child Survival Program, helps save the lives of babies and mothers in poverty utilizing local churches…

Four years ago today I began blogging.  Four years may not seem like that long, but the online world is a bit like dog years so it puts me somewhere between an old crone and a young yet experienced hussy.  I’ll take it. In the past I’ve celebrated my bloggiversary with twitter parties, giveaways, blog…

When you are a little girl, you really know very little about the adults in your life.  Sure, you’ve got the basic information, the fun stories, the logistics of where and how they grew up.  But there is so much that we keep from our children.  Add to that veil of secrecy one more generation…

Over the last four years of blogging I have worked with companies ranging from financial services to children’s toys with everything in between.  Every relationship has had its benefits both to me and to my readers, but never have I been happier to work with a company than I was last weekend.  In fact,  Friday…

I have to admit that I brought it on myself. Last week was the one week of the summer when I had no childcare arrangements so was attempting to find that elusive work/life balance in the most insane way of all – by doing everything at once (and doing nothing well).  By Wednesday I began…

I was kind of a bad ass kid. This is a picture of me at two and a half, about to careen down an unsecured, hot metal slide with essentially no sides and the adult in charge of my safety standing fifteen feet away with a camera in his hands.  I grew up before the…

(alternative title: Disney Pixar’s Brave – review) I’m a planner.  Maybe I’m a control freak, but for now let’s stick with planner. I’ve known my entire life that someday I would be a mom, and I knew exactly what kind of mom I would be: laid back, fun, free spirited, whimsical, hysterical.  Yes, I fantasized that…

After I wrote The Thing About Dreams last week, I went through every Sweet Pickles book on the shelf looking for that slip of paper I remembered from that day in our old living room.  I am very visual. I could see it in my mind.  I could see the paper hitting the dark wood floors…

This weekend I’m going to be teaching a small group session at the Type-A Conference on time management.  Over my last four years as a work-at-home mom, I have been forced to create a variety of strategies to complete my work effectively and efficiently not only so that I am no longer working on my laptop…

This is the inside cover of one of my Sweet Pickles books.  Remember them?  Handyman camel, that messy goose, the kangaroo who was always up to no good… A few years ago I was reading one of my old books to my young daughter and a square of paper fluttered onto the floor.  It said,…

I grew up with a girl named Ulie* who very regularly said, “No offense…” just moments before saying the most offensive things imaginable ranging from “Your mini-bangs really aren’t holding their curl today, Amy” to “No one shops at County Seat anymore.” *names have been changed slightly to only very nominally protect the innocent By…

This is hard for me to admit, but we’ve been together long enough that I think I owe you the truth. I’ve been giving my best stories to someone else. It doesn’t always happen in the same place, and it’s not even always with the same people.  Sometimes I do it in Skype.  Often it’s…

Before I say another word, you need to know something about me.  I was that kid who lived for attending over-the-top Broadway musicals, purchasing the expensive show book with the glossy photos, wearing the show t-shirt to school the Monday after… My plan by the time I reached junior high was to someday play the…

Two years ago I wrote about a moment of parenting bliss when my daughter and I bonded over the musical Cats and I consequently took her to see her first live musical at a local theater.  So much has changed since then.  Now my daughter is reading my favorite books at a breakneck pace, her brother…

My dad and my son hanging out at the lake. My dad is one of those hands on, get outside, take on projects kind of guys, and he has taken his role of grandfather incredibly seriously carving out specific jobs and responsibilities within my home.  He’s a bit obsessed with batteries, always keeps us stocked…

My mom is not one of those moms who makes you a cup of tea, sits down with you, shares a story from her past, and then imparts great wisdom to you in your time of need. Most of her childhood stories end with some variation of “that’s just the way it was,” or “and…